Three in a bed
by Tetsubinatu
Summary: AU drabble series from a rosy future where King Arthur lives happily ever after with Queen Guinevere and their best friends Lord Merlin, Royal Sorcerer and his wife Lady Morgana. At least that's what the world sees. Merlin/Arthur Gwen/Morgana Merlin/Morga
1. Ch1 3 in a bed

She tiptoes into the room. Moonlight streams from the open casement window onto the two sleepers, and she creeps closer until she is breathing into the face of the nearer one.

He stirs, wrinkling his nose against the breeze. "Who is it?" he grumbles quietly, squinting into the dark.

"Melisande," she says, and he can hear the shiver in her voice.

"Hop in, Melly," he says resignedly, holding his blankets up for her to creep in beside him. "Mercy, your feet are cold!"

She giggles and tucks them under his thigh. "I had a bad dream," she confides.

"Spiders, again?"

"Mmm-hmm." Her curly head tucks under his neck and he tries to get comfortable around the warm lump of her and her icy toes jammed into him.

"G'night, Melly," he murmurs, dropping a kiss on her hair and drifting back into the ocean of sleep.

"G'night, Mermer."

On the other side of the bed Arthur smiles to himself and follows his lover and daughter back into slumber.


	2. Ch2 2 in a tower

There's a little tower above their quarters. It is so totally private that they treat it as an extension of their rooms, and it is there that Merlin finds Gwen crying one sunny day.

"Oh!" she gasps, jumping up from her seat and turning to hide her tear-swollen face.

Merlin takes her in his arms, pulling her head in to rest on his chest. She turns and burrows into him, sobbing quietly, so he gently manouevres them across to the bench where they can be more comfortable. His hand moves soothingly among her curls as he waits until she is ready to talk.

Finally, when she is calm against his side he asks, "What's wrong? Can I help?" and haltingly she finds the words to tell him. She wants a baby, and Arthur doesn't. He thinks that three is enough - two healthy sons for Camelot and little Melisande for sheer delight.

"He doesn't understand - I want a _baby_! My arms, my breasts _ache_ for another baby, and I'm young enough and healthy enough. Morgana doesn't want another, but it's harder on her: she gets so sick when she's expecting, but oh Merlin I want one so badly!"

Merlin knows how she feels. He has two beautiful daughters but there are times - he would never tell Morgana - that he yearns for a son. And even if he could persuade her there are no guarantees that the child would be a boy. He just murmurs soothingly and cuddles Gwen sweetly in the sunshine until a far off bell chimes the hour and he knows that they must go back to their duties.

Gwen knows it too. She pulls away slightly and pats her hair. Merlin plucks off a stray twig that must have blown over the parapet and plants a loving kiss on her rosy lips.

"I'll talk to Arthur," he says as they descend the stairs, and she tries a smile for him.

"Maybe he'll listen to you," she says doubtfully.

"Maybe," he says.


	3. Ch3 2 in a bed

There's never been much time for them to just talk, and even less once Arthur became king. Merlin doesn't want to spoil the moment, but he did promise Gwen.

"Gwen tells me she wants a baby," he says conversationally.

Arthur is still lying mostly-on-top of him, where he slumped after they had finished. "Mmmm," he agrees indifferently. "But there's no need." His tongue darts out to lick Merlin's shoulder.

"She was _crying_," Merlin persists, and now - he can't help it - a hint of disapproval has crept into his voice. Merlin's whole body can feel it as Arthur tenses at the criticism, but there is no verbal answer, just another lick, and then a not-so-gentle bite into his shoulder.

After a while, during which Arthur has been sulking into Merlin's abused shoulder, Arthur raises his head. "We have five children between us," he says.

"And Gwen wants another."

"Morgana doesn't."

That's rather a low blow, and Merlin wonders why he is the last of them to know; whether they would even have told him if he hadn't found Gwen crying. He stares into the dark, and although Arthur's body is still pressed over him and into him he suddenly feels very alone - the only one of them not born to and of Camelot.

Arthur rolls clear of him and lights a candle, then returns to peer into Merlin's eyes.

Merlin knows that he will see the hurt there, and being Arthur there is at least an even chance that he will respond with an attack. He braces himself, but Arthur just says quietly, "I love you, Merlin."

There's something a little off in his voice which draws Merlin's gaze back to him. There's pain in Arthur's eyes, and Merlin responds instinctively to soothe it. "I love you too, Arthur."

"I have three beautiful children," Arthur says, "And I love them dearly, but none of them is yours."

And Merlin pulls him closer, because although the life the four of them has built together is better than they could have dreamed, there are still some things that magic cannot do.

He kisses Arthur's forehead, and doesn't say it, because Arthur already knows.


	4. Ch4 4 in a bed

Originally, the plan had been for Morgana to marry Arthur and Gwen Merlin, but it quickly became clear that Morgana and Arthur would drive each other to homicide within a week of the wedding. Morgana was the one to suggest acidly that Arthur marry Gwen, and it had almost fallen apart right there and then.

As soon as Morgana said it, her face had turned to stone.

"No, No!" Gwen stuttered. "Oh Milady, I couldn't!"

Arthur had the frozen stare of someone who had simultaneously realised that this was actually a brilliant idea, and that saying so was going to end in his mutilation or death.

Merlin could see it too, and furthermore he could see that if Gwen married Arthur then he was destined to marry Morgana. Their future hung in the balance as he stepped forward to bow before her.

"Milady," he murmured in his best imitation of Sir Bedivere. Her stricken gaze landed upon him.

"Milady, may I speak with you in private?"

Arthur opened his mouth to protest this breach of etiquette. His eyes slipped over to Gwen, sweet-natured, respectful and gentle. He closed his mouth again.

Morgana nodded regally and led the way from the salon into her adjoining bedchamber. Merlin closed the door behind them.

"Can you bear to be my wife while Gwen is Queen?" he asked her bluntly.

She shuddered like a dryad at the first blow of the axe.

He waited. The lie they were planning to live could only work if there was perfect trust and honesty between them all.

Her ruby-red lips opened on a soft keening noise, and he took her hands in his. "Morgana, if you can't, you only have to say so."

Her chin rose and she swallowed stubbornly. "I can."

"Will you lie with me on your bed and see if we can fit together as man and wife?"

Another long pause yawned before she said quietly,"I must be a maiden until my marriage."

"I know. You will be."

She looked him in the eye for the first time since her outburst and sighed. "It really wouldn't have worked with Arthur, would it?"

She didn't wait for an answer but went and lay on her bed and he lay on his side facing her, dust dancing in the sunlight above them.

He kissed her, lightly, on the mouth and she smiled under his lips. "You're very pretty, Merlin. We'll have beautiful children." And with that she opened her mouth to his and slid her fingers under his tunic.

* * *

Gwen and Arthur finally ventured into the bedroom about half an hour later when there was no response to their knocking, and that caused another screaming match between Morgana and Arthur when Arthur took offence at seeing the flushed and rumpled state of his lover, pinned half-naked underneath Morgana's insistently rubbing hips. Gwen paled, but said nothing as Morgana held out a hand to draw her in closer for a kiss.

And luckily the bed was big enough for them all.


	5. Ch5 4 in a marriage

There were rules, because Morgana and Arthur were possessive, each of their own. Merlin and Arthur slept in Arthur's bed. Gwen and Morgana slept in Morgana's bed. On Tuesdays, and when they were trying to conceive a child, Merlin and Morgana slept in Merlin's bed and Gwen and Arthur slept in Gwen's bed.

Arthur never slept with Morgana, nor Merlin with Gwen. Merlin wondered about that sometimes. He knew that Morgana was not impervious to Arthur's golden charisma and Arthur in his younger years had made no secret of the fact that he was attracted - despite all common sense, he said - to Morgana. Occasionally Merlin thought that the attraction ran deep enough to feel threatening to them both. Sometimes he just thought that it was sensible of them to avoid the bitter fights that bedding each other would surely have brought.

For his own part, Merlin knew that he and Gwen could have made a go of it if things had worked out that way. When they exchanged fondly exasperated looks over the prideful ways of their lovers, when she gave him that beautiful smile of hers, when she needed comforting and Morgana was ranting too hard to notice - Merlin knew that she was as much a part of him as his lover or his wife.

Just because Gwen was sweet and softly spoken didn't mean that she wasn't entitled to a full say in their complicated matrimonial tangle. It occurred to Merlin that if Morgana had wanted another child she wouldn't have hesitated to conceive one, no permission asked or granted. A slow burning began in his gut.

He didn't rush it. He waited until they were at supper, something they tried to do together at least once or twice a week. The children were all asleep and Gwen came from their rooms. Merlin arrived from the kitchens where the cook had been throwing a temper tantrum, Morgana had been negotiating with the masons about the repairs to the west tower and Arthur had been wrestling with a number of petitions from the eastern holdings about Sir Aelfric.

"The man has no common sense!" Arthur groaned, waving the most recent petition at Gwen. "Just look at what he's done now!"

"Actually," Merlin said, bracing his shoulders for the blast, "I have something different to discuss: Gwen wants a baby."

Morgana rolled her eyes and Arthur opened his mouth, but Merlin didn't let them get started. "I know you two don't, but I'd rather like another one too. How about it Gwen?"

Gwen's face was a study in contradictions. Her jaw had dropped in surprise but she was also fighting very hard not to laugh, while eyeing the noble-born members of their partnership warily.

Morgana and Arthur looked briefly at her and clearly decided that she was as blindsided as they had been, then they turned their attention back to Merlin.

"You can't possibly suggest..."

"Gwen isn't some sort of ..."

Gwen's soft voice somehow managed to cut through their ire like the chime of a bell as she said, "What a lovely idea! Thank you Merlin."


	6. Ch6 One all alone

Arthur hadn't been angry enough with Merlin to exile him to his own bed since the time Merlin and Morgana slew the wyvern without him while Uther was on his deathbed. It was a lonely feeling, to sleep without the comfort of Arthur's little grunts and snorts or Morgana's restless sleep habits.

Merlin put on a robe over his nightshirt and went into their shared antechamber for a book. Gwen had some new volumes imported from Brittany and if he couldn't sleep at least they might give him a laugh. He poked up the fire and curled up on the furs in front of it, book in hand.

* * *

Arthur found him there in the pre-dawn, shivering in his sleep in front of a near-dead pile of embers. He looked down at his lover, hair a little streaked with grey but thin as a rake still.

"Merlin you idiot," he said, low and exasperated. "Come to bed, clotpole."

Merlin stumbled sleepily to his feet under Arthur's guidance. "Prat," he mumbled. "Cold."

"You _have_ a perfectly good bed through that door over there," Arthur sniped.

"Lonely," Merlin said on a sigh, and Arthur led him back in to the warmth of his own just-vacated bed. He'd meant to start on his reports before everyone else awoke but he hadn't slept very well and an hour or two extra wouldn't do any harm.

Merlin was cool and boneless in his arms. All Arthur's rage had burned away into the night and he was left defenceless against dark eyelashes and good intentions.

"Mer-lin," he complained uselessly into the half-light. Surely it had been easier for Uther, without this ceaseless need to consider other people's needs, to _negotiate_ over things that were simple and obvious.

Merlin stirred in his arms and pushed his sleepy forehead into Arthur's shoulder. "Arthur," he said with utter contentment.

Uther's love had died young, poor sod. Arthur kissed the dark head in his arms and gave thanks for what he had.


End file.
